Ann Pettifor

Ann Pettifor is one of the leading voices in the debate on the effects of monetary policy and debt on the economy, real people and businesses. She is a co-founder of PRIME: Policy Research in Macroeconomics, where she and her colleagues publish regularly on the nature of credit and its role in determining macroeconomic outcomes.

Ann's book Just Moneyexplains clearly what money is, where it comes from, and how it is currently controlled. She shows how an improved understanding of money and finance can build more just and productive economies. As a Keynesian, she argues strongly for 'tight but cheap money'.

Ann is also a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, (nef) London where she dedicated three years to studying the post-Bretton Woods financial architecture. This led to the publication of the Real World Economic Outlook (2003). In 2006, her book The Coming First World Debt Crisis (Palgrave) warned that rich countries were heading for a debt crisis that would overshadow anything seen in the developing world. Both were ridiculed. She also co-authored nef's the Green New Deal, published in July, 2008 and updated as The Cuts Won't Work in December, 2009.

Before that, Ann led a global advocacy effort aimed at the Paris Club, the World Bank and IMF to have the unpayable debts of the poorest countries written off. As a result, and with the support of leaders ranging from PM Tony Blair, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to Presidents Clinton and George Bush - more than $100 billion of debt was acknowledged as unpayable, and written off for 35 of the lowest income countries.

This experience of dealing with official creditors immersed her in the issues of sovereign debt. She regularly attends World Bank and IMF meetings, and, working with organisations in Thailand and Indonesia had first-hand experience of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Later she worked in Buenos Aires with economists and parliamentarians during Argentina's sovereign debt crisis of 2001. In 2004-5 she advised the Government of Nigeria on its negotiations with European and Japanese creditors in advance of its critical 2005 Paris Club meeting at which $18 billion of debt was written off by OECD creditors.

Ann remains one of the most eloquent and insightful voices in explaining how debt, credit and the control of the financial architecture for the benefit of a few has created instability and stagnation in world economies.